As Subway Riders Fume, City and State Leaders Are Mostly Mum

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Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York led a crowd celebrating the unveiling of the first part of the Second Avenue subway on New Year’s Eve. Mr. Cuomo has promoted building infrastructure, but has remained mostly silent on the state-run subway’s increasing woes.CreditCreditBenjamin Norman for The New York Times

A signal malfunction at the height of the morning commute in New York City upends subway service from Brooklyn to the Bronx. Switch problems leave riders stranded across Brooklyn. A power failure at just one Manhattan station snarls nearly a dozen of the system’s 22 lines.

Through this list of recent woes, the person most responsible for ensuring that the trains run on time, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, has remained mostly silent as subway service gets worse by the day.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who may be weighing a presidential run in 2020, has eagerly sought to burnish his legacy by focusing on infrastructure, from personally unveiling the first part of the Second Avenue subway to taking an inaugural joy ride across the new Kosciuszko Bridge. But the subway, the lifeblood of the city and arguably the most critical piece of infrastructure Mr. Cuomo controls, is falling apart on his watch.

“Governor Cuomo shows up to open the Second Avenue subway, but he’s missing in action for the day-to-day disaster that transit riders are experiencing,” John Raskin, the executive director of Riders Alliance, an advocacy group, said after the last major disruption.

The subway — a crown jewel of urban diversity, a vital piece of the local economy and a point of pride for millions of New Yorkers up and down the economic ladder — is rapidly deteriorating. Delays have soared to more than 70,000 each month from about 28,000 per month in 2012. Riders are losing wages when they miss work. Business leaders are worried about the future. Residents are souring on the city.

“I never know if I am going to get to anything on time,” said Frank Leone, 31, who lives in Queens. Worsening subway service has made him rethink living in New York City. “I give myself an hour to get to work everyday, even though it only takes 35 minutes,” he said, “and I still show up late to work.”

Yet Mr. Cuomo often gets a pass: Many riders — even some who work in city government — mistakenly direct their anger at Mayor Bill de Blasio, believing the city’s leader would naturally be in charge of its subway. Mr. de Blasio, also a Democrat, has been quick to disabuse them whenever the subject comes up and has also had little to say about the constant drumbeat of subway meltdowns.

“The M.T.A. is run by the State of New York, not the City of New York,” Mr. de Blasio said when asked directly about subway delays in a radio interview Thursday. “But we’re going to do all we can to push the state to invest in the subway system.”

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Protesters and members of the Riders Alliance advocacy group demonstrated in front of Governor Cuomo’s Manhattan office last week. Delays in New York City’s subway service have soared to more than 70,000 a month.CreditYana Paskova for The New York Times

Chronic problems with the state-run transit system have prompted some elected officials to wonder whether nearly six million daily riders would, in fact, be better off if the mayor took over.

“I’ve wanted to have a move to put it under the mayor’s control,” said Eric L. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president who has fumed over the subway chaos. “Because it is in the city, we should have someone who is directly responsible.”

That outcome is highly unlikely to be suggested by City Hall or Albany, both of which benefit from the current state of affairs: The mayor can plausibly pass the buck; and the governor remains at a safe political remove. The city once ran the subway, but the state took over the struggling system in 1968 in a power grab blessed by Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller.

Neither Mr. Cuomo nor Mr. de Blasio has shown any desire to work together on even simple issues — like whether a rogue deer in Harlem should have been euthanized — let alone on the most nettlesome problems plaguing the city’s most important public resource.

Frustrated commuters are left to wonder why Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio are not addressing their pain. It offers a stark contrast to how they respond when the news is good. In the days before the opening of the Second Avenue subway, Mr. Cuomo sent out a blizzard of news releases and regularly appeared before cameras to herald the line as an example of the big things government can do.

Mr. de Blasio was happy to bask in the spotlight when a new subway station opened nearly two years ago on the Far West Side of Manhattan — this one paid for by the city. The mayor has also held a series of events leading up to the recent launch of new ferry service, smiling broadly as he steered one of the new vessels.

Dani Lever, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Mr. Cuomo had helped to secure the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s largest capital improvement plan after years of underinvestment. (The de Blasio administration also pointed to its $2.5 billion commitment to the capital plan.)

“Still, the constant service disruptions are entirely unacceptable, so in the short term, he has tasked the M.T.A. with developing a plan to address the root causes of the subway delays plaguing its customers,” Ms. Lever said in a statement.

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Subway riders are increasingly wondering when their trains will arrive, and whether the government is going to address the transit problems. “I never know if I am going to get to anything on time,” one rider said.CreditJeenah Moon for The New York Times

On Monday, the authority announced a $20 million plan to target frequent causes of delays, including overcrowding and signal problems. The first phase, which focuses on the Eighth Avenue lines in Manhattan, includes directing riders to painted zones at less busy locations on platforms and responding to incidents on the tracks more quickly.

The authority’s interim executive director, Veronique Hakim, said in an interview that the agency was committed to improving subway service.

“We feel it,” she said of the growing frustration. “We know it. We understand it.”

Mr. de Blasio has been wary of publicly delving into the subway’s current woes, City Hall officials said, to avoid provoking Mr. Cuomo and endangering transportation issues that the city and state are working on together, such as select bus service and preparations for the temporary closure of the L train.

“New Yorkers deserve a subway system that works, not more talk,” said Austin Finan, a spokesman for the mayor.

Yet, with subway service so dire, many agree it is time for Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo to step up, put aside their long-running animosity and work together.

“They’re letting this disagreement, this feud, have a deleterious effect on the state and the city, and that’s scary,” said David R. Jones, a member of the authority’s board nominated by Mr. de Blasio. “I don’t mean this should be a kumbaya moment, but they should really get together and come up with a common approach about improving the M.T.A.”

That is what happened in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Mayor Edward I. Koch famously rode the subways to ask “How’m I doin’?” and waged a public campaign against subway graffiti. But Mr. Koch had a friend in Gov. Hugh L. Carey during the first part of his mayoralty; the two men served together in Congress and, before that, in Europe during World War II.

Richard Ravitch, the former M.T.A. chairman credited with turning the subway around in the 1980s, said Mr. Koch helped him improve the system. Though Mr. Koch let Mr. Ravitch take the blame for fare increases, the mayor worked behind the scenes to gain support for the subway, he said.

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Mayor Bill de Blasio on the Lunchbox, a vessel in New York’s new ferry service. Mr. de Blasio has been hesitant to publicly delve into addressing issues with the subway, which is managed by state government.CreditVictor J. Blue for The New York Times

“Ed Koch did whatever I asked him to do,” Mr. Ravitch said in an interview.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani also worked with the state to merge the transit police — a separate state agency — with the New York Police Department, whose officers now patrol the subways. “It required the mayor to work with the governor who he didn’t endorse,” said Joseph J. Lhota, a deputy mayor at the time and, later, the chairman of the transportation authority.

Mr. Lhota, a Republican who ran against Mr. de Blasio in 2013, argued for mayoral control of the authority during his campaign, a position also taken by some Democratic candidates, though not Mr. de Blasio. At the time, Thomas F. Prendergast, a respected leader who replaced Mr. Lhota as chairman and helped bring the subway back after Hurricane Sandy, dismissed the idea.

Mr. de Blasio has focused on providing new transit options he can control, such as a proposed streetcar linking the waterfronts in Brooklyn and Queens, and the new city-run ferry service. (The city estimates that ferries will eventually carry 4.6 million riders annually — far less than the number of subway riders each day.)

Both Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio declined requests for interviews. The governor’s office would not say the last time he rode the subway, though Ms. Lever noted that Mr. Cuomo does not live in New York City; Mr. de Blasio’s office said he last rode it a little over three weeks ago, after a news conference near Grand Central Terminal. Both are facing re-election — Mr. de Blasio in November; Mr. Cuomo next year — without serious challengers on the horizon.

The two leaders perhaps do not appreciate the extent of riders’ misery, since they prefer to travel by car. Mr. Cuomo is rarely spotted on the subway, though his daughters have complained to him about crowding. Mr. de Blasio said he did not plan to use the new Second Avenue subway — even though it is blocks from his home at Gracie Mansion in Manhattan — since it did not fit in with his routine most mornings of being driven to hisgym in Brooklyn.

The politics behind the transportation authority, which controls the city’s subway, buses and commuter railroads, are also complicated. Mr. Cuomo appoints its chief executive and board chairman, and he has taken an increasingly hands-on role at the agency. The mayor nominated three of the 19 members on the current board.

Mr. Jones, who has publicly criticized Mr. de Blasio for a lack of support for a proposal for reduced fares for low-income New Yorkers, said the mayor and his board members have a bully pulpit and should use it to hammer away at worsening subway service and propose solutions.

“On the one hand, it’s correct to say the focus needs to be on the governor — he controls the financing mechanisms and the board,” said Benjamin Kabak, who writes the Second Ave. Sagas subway blog. “On the other hand, it’s a New York City problem. The mayor comes across as dismissing the concerns of New Yorkers.”

Veronica Vanterpool, a transportation authority board member picked by the mayor, said Mr. Cuomo spent time on superficial things, like adding lights on bridges, instead of critical but less sexy fixes like upgrading antiquated signals that are to blame for many delays.

“He’s turned his attention to some cosmetic changes, which don’t impact the day-to-day commute,” Ms. Vanterpool said, “and don’t relieve a lot of the day-to-day frustration.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Riders Fume and Point Fingers as Subway Falters. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe